


Reminisce

by monaboyd_archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-01
Updated: 2004-03-01
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7711102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monaboyd_archivist/pseuds/monaboyd_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All alone on a rainy day, Billy gets out his Cranium game and remembers the old days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reminisce

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Shirasade: this story was originally archived at the Monaboyd.net Archive, which was closed in September 2014 due to software issues and a lack of new submissions for several years . To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2014. I e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on the Monaboyd.net Archive collection profile.

Billy sat at the bare table with his hands cupped around his mug of cooling tea. The window showed nothing but white sky (or was it fog?) and the roof sang of the rain pattering endlessly down. He stared at the colorful box in front of him, pondering. Finally he set his tea aside and opened the large box. Cranium, it read. Inside this box was to others a game, to him a store of memories.

There were no instructions. Dom had lost them long ago. The board was black and Billy laid it aside unopened. Cranium Clay: a container of cheerfully purple playdoh. Billy opened it and inhaled. Smiling at the foul chemical smell of it, he remembered the look on Elijah’s face when he had had to sculpt DNA, and the time Dom had everyone on the floor when sculpting a detailed interpretation of “spank”, and the time Orlando took hours designing a remote control. The time Viggo made a perfect replica of a piston and no one knew what it was (but oh did they guess!).

There were pads of paper with drawings all over them. Billy could place each drawing, or if not, the style. Elijah’d drawn little dots all over one page, trying to draw rain, but anyone who had a guess said “Dom’s face!” Another page showed Bernard’s comical rendering of King Kong, and another, Miranda’s sweeping illustration of a Viking ship complete with the men in horned helmets; Sean’s drawing of an airborne puppy (“frisk”) that Billy thought looked a lot like Orli.

Under the pads of paper were the pieces. The 10-sided die that Billy hardly ever threw hard enough, the same one that Hugo would always throw at the others’ pieces, the one that Dom always overthrew but Elijah always caught on the other side.

Then the pieces themselves: blue, red, yellow, and green spheres upon squares. Orli vehemently insisted the red was actually orange and always took it because he couldn’t stand other people having it and calling it red. Whenever Billy picked his team’s piece, he always had to have the blue one. Dom would always pick the green one.

Billy put his blue piece back almost reverently and picked up a yellow box of cards. The first card read “Curmudgeon: a) large, heavy club, b) bitter, stubborn, ill-tempered person, c) old recluse, d) hobo stew.” Billy recalled that one from the time Liv had seriously thought the answer was d. Another card said to spell “muscle” backwards, and Orlando had spelled “sumelc”. The yellow cards were boring, though.

The green cards were much more fun. Billy remembered those the most clearly. One charades card reminded Billy of the time Elijah had pointed ecstatically to Orli and jumped up and down mouthing “Aaaaah...” When that didn’t work, he waved his hand around in the air like a parachute. People were guessing things like “Pushing Orli off a cliff!” In the end Elijah had to dash into the kitchen to grab a plastic bag and hold it over his head and run back in forth with it ballooning behind him. Cate had guessed correctly, “parachute” just after the time ran out.

When Andy had done an animated impression of Jaques Cousteau, complete with the accent and the tiptoes and lobster imitations, everyone had been laughing too hard to even try to guess what he was trying to get across. Another card told the player to sing the main theme to Star Wars- Elijah had nailed it before Bean had hummed the fourth note. Billy recalled with a giggle John’s efforts in politely acting out the word “reproduce”. And another giggle, remembering David’s unabashed antics when acting out “blowfish”. And poor Karl trying to act out Gone with the Wind, then Death Valley as portrayed by Viggo crawling across the floor on hands and knees with his tongue hanging out. Billy having a terrible time trying to hum Britney Spears with a straight face. Ian cracking everyone up with his rare Energizer Bunny impression. The way Dom brought tears of hilarity to Billy’s eyes with an exaggerated imitation of Elvis and 5 minutes later the look in Dom’s eyes as he hummed Killing Me Softly With His Song straight at Billy.

Billy put the green cards back and picked up the hourglass. He held it up to his face, admiring the way the tiny cubes of white sand sparkled. The way they flowed smoothly, slowly, little by little like the tears down Billy’s face when he cried alone, from the top part to the bottom part- and out of that one tiny little hole between the two parts. How the lower part got all the sand and the top half was left with nothing but tiny remnants. Only memories of the sparkling sand.


End file.
